A few years ago, Florida seemed to have this strange sort of hold on me. I usually go there once a year for a writer's conference in the Bradenton area and over the years I've made several good friends in various parts of the state. At times it was difficult for me to distinguish the exact source of the pull—yes, part of it had to do with a woman. Part of it had to do with weather. As someone who loves to play tennis, playing all year long would be a dream come true. And another part had to do with venturing out on my own.
For one reason or another, I've never really felt free to venture out into the world to do my own thing. That might speak more about my insecurities than it does my desire to live up to my responsibilities, but sometimes that line is a blurry one as well. I do travel quite frequently, but it's hard to enjoy any place to its fullest when time is limited. I don't have a big desire to leave the city I live in now, but I think knowing that I could do it would mean more to me than the actual action.
The calling Florida had on me seemed so clear at the time, but my circumstances didn't seem quite so clear. I never did quite get over the clarity of the calling though. I'm rarely clear about such big things. Maybe I was just swept up in the emotion of it all—I can't really say for sure, but I ran across a paragraph yesterday in the book that I'm reading that really got me.
I'm reading The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty. I wrote about the book in a previous post. The book is about a 40-something year old alcoholic named Smithy who loses his parents in a car accident and then finds out that his long lost sister is also dead. In his grief, he goes out to his parent's garage, sees his boyhood bicycle, rides it to the end of his driveway and keeps going. He travels all the way from Rhode Island to Los Angeles to claim his sister's remains. On his way he meets people, some good—some not so good, and in the process he gets his life back on track.
The book is painful to read. Smithy's character knows exactly what he is and he's stopped trying to convince himself otherwise. I think he's like most of us though—he's spent large portions of his life in denial, but by the time the book begins, his character is forced to see himself as he really is and it's unnerving—both for him and the reader.
Anyway, here's the paragraph that got me:
"Now, this is one of those clear things. Where I was. A pretty grove of fir trees. Picnic benches. Bathroom. A pretty place. When you're a kid, place is everything. And when you leave, you're so absolutely aware of departure. I haven't been aware for a while now. Long enough, actually, to not be aware when one place started running into another place, until they were all the same. But on this Saturday, in this cool grove, with kickstand down and my feet feeling wonderful, I had a sense, a real sense, of having left Rhode Island and crossed out of my life."
Smithy saw his leaving Rhode Island as "one of those clear things" and somehow he knew that it would lead to a different life. Geography had nothing to do with it. Risk did. People did. A willingness to follow clarity did. And while I'm only about a third of the way through the book and early on in Smithy's journey, I can already see how this trip will be the medicine that his soul needed.
Would an experimental trip to Florida have had the same affect on me? I don't know. But I think I'll be a little more open to clarity when it hits me again in the future.
